The Merc C63 is properly mental. The RS4 (I know it’s out of production), is a brilliant, brilliant thing. The BMW M3 brings together so much tech and knowledge that the sheer speed it can amass is almost inconceivable.

And then we have the Lexus IS-F. And I love it. Why? Because I’m not a racing driver. I realise that real life is as important as the weekend blast of the car journalist. I constantly think what it would be like to live with this car for a couple of years, how successful it would be as my day-to-dayer.

It isn’t particularly hardcore, really. Not when faced with the M3 or the C63. It’s actually more like the RS4 – a better all-rounder that loses perhaps the last five per cent of speed in pursuit of the real world. The steering has an awfully dead feel to it, and there’s a dearth of seat-of-the-pants information. But there’s an ease to the eight-speed auto and creamy-smooth V8 that means you could live with this car.

Without a doubt, the heaviest praise an automotive journalist can give a car is that they themselves want to buy one, which Ford quite clearly does.

One thing he does mention, which I knew but somehow forgot, is that there’s only 150 IS-Fs planned for the UK, which will make them a rare sight indeed.